More gambling the wrong way to raise money
Published 6:28 pm, Friday, May 31, 2013
State officials starting with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy need to buckle down on the matters of cutting spending and increasing revenue as they try to assemble a state budget.
But the first thing they should do is drop a proposal to include Keno, the fast-moving video gambling game, as a way to raise some $28 million for a budget gasping for revenue.
It's a sad, desperate option for a state that should be concentrating on improving the climate for businesses to encourage job growth, not grasping at a get-rich-quick scheme.
The perils of gambling addiction are well-documented, and play havoc with thousands of lives every year.
Even short of addiction, the effects of gambling on the state populace are unhealthy in the extreme.
After all, it's not people who are already well-off who get in trouble with the lottery. It's people who need cash, and are hoping against great odds to strike it rich.
Legalized gambling is nothing less than a tax on poor people.
Walk into any Connecticut Lottery outlet in the state and watch an elderly man or woman turn over bits and pieces of a Social Security or retirement check in pursuit of the big score.
While adults certainly have the right to make their own decisions, it's a fact that a certain percentage of the adult population has a problem with gambling.
If it's fair to say that opening up new avenues for gambling will increase revenue for the state, then it's also fair to say that it will create new opportunities for those who have a problem.
The governor's enthusiasm for this type of revenue is disappointing.
We can only hope that this proposal goes the same way as similar ones made by former Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who in 2009 floated the idea of legalizing Keno. She eventually abandoned the idea.
Since his days on the campaign trail, Malloy has harped that the state's future is in job creation. And he's right.
That's where the administration's energy should be spent.
Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/More-gambling-the-wrong-way-to-raise-money-4566917.php#ixzz2UzCcS1U8
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